CIO-CMO Relationship: Plagued By Digital Pretenders
For many companies these days, "digital" is almost exclusively about customer engagement, the domain of the CMO. However, the CIO is crucial in linking business processes and enterprise information to the digital channels that achieve the always-on state that customers and employees demand.
The strength of the CIO-CMO relationship has never been more vital to a company's success, yet the confusion surrounding these roles in the digital enterprise has never been stronger.
Every year PwC conducts a survey to evaluate the "digital IQ" of companies, which measures the extent to which they weave technology into everything they do, from strategy through execution. Our 6th Annual Digital IQ Survey, published in March 2014, of over 1,400 business and technology executives found that the majority (70%) of top performers -- companies in the top quartile for revenue growth, profitability, and innovation -- had strong relationships between the CIO and the CMO.
However, we found that nearly half of the businesses in our study (49%) lack that strong CIO-CMO relationship. As part of our investigation, we talked directly to CIOs and CMOs about how they work together. As one retail and consumer products CMO explained it, "Our Digital IQ is low because we're not having regular digital conversations."
Why do CIOs have strong relationships with every other executive in the C-suite except the CMO? We can speculate that budgets, historical interactions, or perceived ineffectiveness of IT are the barriers to CIOs and CMOs working together, but when you boil it down, CIOs and CMOs often don't see eye to eye because they have their backs to each other. CMOs are looking outward toward the customer while most CIOs are looking at internal business operations. It’s time they face each other or risk falling flat on the transition to digital.
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